An Apocalyptic Need (20 page)

But the putrid stench and the restless snarling and snapping she heard around her told Cari she was about as far from the Interplanetary Arboretum as one could get. Moving slowly so as not to set the cage swinging, Cari shifted so that she could peer over the side.

Fingers clasped so hard on the metal bars of her cage that her knuckles were white, Cari looked down on the nightmare below her, a moue of horror building in her throat.

The space below was filled with zombies. Rabid, hungry, mindlessly aggressive undead. They paced ceaselessly, their gazes sliding around the space, teeth snapping, and stringy limbs flashing out to rip at anything in their path.

They didn’t shamble and, as she watched them a horrifying realization grew in her. They weren’t mindless at all. The zombies roaming mere feet below her cage moved with determination and purpose.

Their feral gazes shone with an eerie red light that Cari had never seen before. She watched a smaller zombie, a female with the stringy remnants of once blonde hair that fell to her shoulders, pick up a huge male with an irritated growl and fling him across the room.

Cari sucked in a terrified gasp. The monsters in that room with her were no ordinary zombies. They’d been enhanced, strengthened, and then driven mad with hunger.

In a moment of clarity, Cari realized she was looking at the contents of the long row of metal boxes she hadn’t been able to access with her key.

Supplies her ass.

Something hit her cage with a deafening clang and the metal prison swung sideways, sending Cari’s stomach lurching with it. She cried out, grabbing the metal surrounding her and braced her feet as a fleshless arm smashed into her cage like a club.

Black blood stained the fingernails of the hand, and dripped from the end where the arm had been separated from its host.

In the first, dizzying upswing of her cage, she saw the zombie holding the severed arm and her gut roiled with fear as he opened his wide maw, showing two gap-filled rows of teeth that had been filed to deadly points. As her cage hit the end of its tether and started back toward him, the zombie swung the arm again, jolting the cage to an abrupt stop. Cari screamed as she was flung into the slimy metal bars.

The world swayed dizzyingly around her, and Cari’s screams seemed to have riled up the zombies covering the floor below. Bellows and roars followed as she flew and twirled above their heads.

Cari’s stomach heaved and she gave up its contents in a violent fit of retching. But the monsters weren’t done with her.

There was a thud and the cage’s arc was disrupted as a zombie latched onto it, skewing it in another direction that tugged at Cari’s roiling stomach. Then another monster leapt up and attached itself to the outside of her prison, and another. Cari scrabbled to the center as clawed, bloody hands reached for her through the bars.

More and more of them piled onto the cage, climbing each other’s dangling forms, until the entire cage was covered with writhing, decaying bodies.

Hot tears flowed down her cheeks and she made herself into the smallest ball she could in the very center of the twisting space.

Still it wasn’t good enough.

Unfortunately, it didn’t take them long to figure out they could shake the cage and send her flying, helpless, around the space.

~AN~

A small, warm hand landed on Grimm’s shoulder. He looked up at Yeira. Her lips moved but her words were lost behind the sound of rushing wind that he thought might be only in his head. He pointed to his ears, shaking his head.

Grimm pushed to his feet, looking around for his weapons. Nothing mattered in that moment but getting to Cari. “I need to go after Cari.”

“Go after her, where?” Audie shouted. Grimm heard him as if from the opposite end of a long tunnel. The other hunter was sitting nearby, his broad face pale and lined with weariness. Grimm realized what it had cost his friend to come after them. He walked over and offered his hand. “I think I can pick up the wizard’s signature. Before you came I tried to mark his energy so I could destroy it. I didn’t complete the process, but I think I’ve got enough to track him.”

Audie nodded. “We’ll come with you.”

Grimm thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. “I need you to do something else for me.”

Yeira shook her head. “I’m coming with you, Grimm. I need to see Cari. I need to help her.”

“You can’t…”

Yeira stepped forward, her fists clenching. “I’m coming.”

Grimm looked at Audie, expecting support. He was surprised when the big hunter shook his head and sided with his woman. “She’s been having visions for days, Grimm. She and Cari have some kind of connection. Yeira won’t rest until Cari’s safe.”

Frustration spun through him and he lost his temper. “Don’t you see, nobody will be able to save her from this thing? Not without some serious help. That’s why I need you to go to Delta Raze and find him. He may be our only hope to save Cari and help us destroy this wizard.”

Audie and Yeira shared a look. Grimm knew they had a lot of questions but he didn’t have time to answer them. “Look, I didn’t want to tell you why I went there because I wasn’t sure it would work out and I didn’t want to disappoint…”

“
What
would work out?” Yeira asked impatiently. “This isn’t the time for confessions, hunter.”

Grimm shook his head. “It’s not a confession. It’s an explanation. You need to travel to Delta Raze and hire an Amazon guide named Teniff. She’ll take you to him. Tell him his daughter is in danger and he must come quickly.”

“Tell who? Dammit, Grimm. What does Cari’s father have to do with this?”

Grimm turned away, striding toward the door. “Everything. He has everything to do with this. It’s his blood running in her veins that the wizard seeks.” He glanced at Yeira. “The same blood runs in your veins, Yeira. He’s your father too.”

Yeira’s pretty face paled and her eyes widened in shock. “My fath…”

Grimm turned at the door, sending her an apologetic glance. “I don’t have time to explain right now but you need to trust me. Gerith Grimes has the power to stop the wizard and the
Stellam
. We need him on our side in this.”

He left them standing there, shock written plainly across both of their faces. Grimm felt badly for dumping the knowledge on Yeira that way and then leaving. But he had no choice.

His instincts were screaming that Cari was in terrible danger.

And he was determined not to let her down.

A hand gripped her ankle, dragging her toward the bars. Screaming and kicking desperately at the bruising grip, Cari struggled to get away before the knifelike teeth closed over her flesh. Hands seized her hair, ripping it from her head in thick ribbons. Agony washed over her as another monster grabbed her hand, pulling her in the opposite direction as she turned her foot to keep it from being pulled through the bars.

Terror made her reactive, shutting down reason, and Cari could do nothing except scream and kick and try to get free. It wasn’t enough. The cage was inundated with the foul creatures and even as she fought more climbed on board. The cage started to spin under the scrambling zombies and some fell off.

The monsters started to fight among themselves and Cari had a moment of hope that she could get free, but the big one that had hold of her foot easily fought off the rest. He fixed his terrifying red gaze on Cari and, with a spit-filled growl, dragged her foot through the bars.

Something snapped inside her. Fire sizzled through her veins. Silvery energy crackled on her fingertips and the monster holding her wrist let go with a roar of pain. Cari yanked her hand back and sent a double stream of silver energy into the decaying thug holding her foot.

The thing’s head exploded, covering Cari and the other monsters in a meaty gore. Her mind nearly gone with terror and rage, she shoved to her feet and sprayed the remaining zombies with magic, ripping them into large chunks that rained down on those pacing below the cage.

Cari threw back her head and screamed, her mind splintering as energy sprayed unheeded from her fingertips.

Finally she fell to her knees, panting, her hands dropping as the energy left her. She sat like that for several minutes, sobbing softly, before gathering herself and swiping at the moisture on her cheeks. She was done being a victim. She would find a way out of that cage and out of the cavernous death kennel and complete her mission.

With that thought, Cari squared her shoulders and looked around. The zombies had moved away from her cage, at least for the moment she would have some peace.

That was good. Because she needed time to think and plan.

~AN~

The Amazon stood nose to nose with Audie, her forest-green gaze snapping. “I will not take you to the recluse. He wishes to be left alone and he is a very dangerous man.”

Audie glowered at her. “If you’re too afraid, just tell us the way and we’ll go ourselves. As the woman’s jaw tightened, Yeira lowered her gaze and covered her mouth to hide a smile.

“I’m not afraid of anything, hunter.”

“Ah,” Audie said with a smile. “You know what I am. Then you should know that I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

“I know that your kind thinks everything you do is important. Meanwhile everybody you take notice of dies.” She placed long, narrow hands on rounded hips and put herself into Audie’s space. Her head dipped menacingly as she glared at him. The woman wore her dark brown hair in shoulder length twists that seemed to have formed into permanent ropes. Her enormous breasts strained a leather vest, the visible cleavage implying she wore nothing underneath.

A rope tattoo surrounded each of her upper arms and a single yellow flower decorated each rope. Yeira had read about the Amazons of
Delta Raze and knew the flower delineated which tribe she was from.
Teniff was from one of the interior regions, which meant that was probably where
Gerith Grimes was.

“I assure you Hunter Grimes will want the information we bring him. It is about his daughters.”

The woman’s dark gaze widened just enough to tell Yeira they’d struck a nerve. “The recluse has no family.”

Yeira still didn’t believe it herself.

“He does,” Audie insisted. “And one of them is in trouble. We need his help to save her.”

“It’s okay, Teniff,” a deep, rusty-sounding voice said from behind them.

Yeira and Audie turned as a large man with spiky red-blond hair and a neatly trimmed beard stepped from the jungle-like woods. “I’ll speak to them.”

Dressed in a rough poncho over leather battle pants, with the strap of a long, ancient looking firearm slung across his torso, the man strode closer, his deep-set, silver eyes locked on Yeira. The stranger’s wide mouth was tight with emotion. Finally he inclined his head, the hard steel of his gaze softening slightly. “Yeira. You’ve grown into a beautiful young woman.”

She blinked, feeling the blood rush from her face. She gave her head a small shake. “It isn’t true. It can’t be.”

He turned to Audie as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’ve had visions that Cari is in danger. You must take me to her.”

Audie stepped closer to Yeira, wrapping an arm around her shoulders in support. “And you are?”

The man’s eerie silver gaze snapped with impatience. “I’m the man you came looking for, Sorceri Bounty Hunter. Gerith Grimes.”

~AN~

Grimm stood before the portal in Dodge Town, his hands flat upon its shimmering surface. Cari’s signature touched his senses, sweet like spun sugar. He closed his eyes and let the energy infuse him, counting on it to keep him grounded when the wizard’s oily magic started to saturate his pores.

The portal gave off a low-level hum that would be undetectable when the townspeople moved along its streets. But in the wee hours of the morning, the streets of Dodge Town were quiet and darker than the inside of a witch. Rising above the fetid but natural stench of horse shit and human waste, Grimm’s nose detected a sulfuric tang that told him the portal had been recently used.

He’d been shocked when he’d followed the wizard’s energy to the portal. Somehow he’d thought the creature could navigate through time and space without a magic artifact. But, despite the obvious immensity of his power, the wizard had looked sickly. It was possible he was saving his energies for whatever evil he had planned for Cari.

Grimm was going to make sure that didn’t happen. He opened his eyes and dropped his hands. With a deep breath, Grimm called his guide magics and watched as they gathered at the face of the portal, swirling slowly as the sparking blue lights flitted toward the artifact from the surrounding area. Once the magics had reached saturation point on the portal’s surface, Grim reached out and touched its very center, using his mind to call the specific points of energy he’d mapped and set them into play. The energy became manic, jittery, abandoning its usual whirling aspect as it traced the map Grimm’s mind gave it and began to light the wizard’s path through time and space.